


Pink's Anatomy

by Qu_Marsh



Category: Final Fantasy IV, Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VIII, Xenogears
Genre: Christmas, Dramedy, F/F, F/M, Gen, New Year's Eve, Paopu Fruit, Parody, Reunions, Spiders, Zombies, medical drama
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-09
Updated: 2014-06-09
Packaged: 2018-02-03 23:05:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,478
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1759207
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Qu_Marsh/pseuds/Qu_Marsh
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>At a reunion with her old school friends, Selphie is roped into becoming a doctor for a day. That means a Christmas filled with preparing potions, treating zombies, and finding out whether friendships can stand the test of time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pink's Anatomy

**Author's Note:**

> As with a lot of my stories ... I had a mental "soundtrack" in mind when writing this one, so I've added links to the relevant tracks on YouTube where available.

[](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xgBfoOJR6Rs)

_Out of office notification,_ Selphie typed. _I will be visiting friends until the New Year. If you have any urgent needs, please contact Xu. Love and peace! BOOYAKA!!_

With that, Balamb Garden's Director of New Media stepped away from her desk, grabbed her purse and coat, and headed for the elevator. And, yes, she was still trying to make "booyaka" happen. 

She stopped at her boss's cubicle. "I'm off," she announced. "The passwords for the Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Tumblr, Pinterest, and MogNet accounts are all at my cube if you need 'em for anything." 

"Geez," said Xu, "is there any site that you're _not_ on?" 

"I finally stopped updating our Xanga a few months back, yeah." 

Xu nodded. "All right, have fun in Deling City. Don't forget to take lots of selfies." 

"Har, har," Selphie said. Like she hadn't heard two hundred versions of _that_ joke already. 

From there, it was back to her apartment to pick up her luggage and her roommate. The latter proved to be more immobile. "Hey, Yuffie, are you ready to go?" Selphie said, pounding on her friend's bedroom door. 

"Gawd," came the groggy reply. That sounds like a negative. 

"Were you asleep? It's 6 PM. How can you be asleep? Are you up really late or did you go to bed really early?" 

"I dunno." 

Selphie couldn't help but roll her eyes a little. Yuffie was a great friend, but sometimes even Selphie couldn't help but wonder how Yuffie had ever made it into SeeD. 

Oh, well. Work was the last thing that Selphie wanted to think about right now. This was Christmas Eve! It was time for her freakin' _vacation_! The upside of working a somewhat boring cubicle job was that it made you triply excited about days off. The mere prospect of free time unfettered by schedules and rules, even before she'd actually _done_ anything, had her in a giddy frenzy. 

Now that Selphie was a responsible adult, most of her days were spent trying to sand off her rough edges so that she wouldn't yell out "Whoo hoo!" in the board room or stay up so late playing video games that she slept through the last bus into work. But not this week. This week, she and her friends would prove that their stories and dreams and quirks still mattered; this week, they would let themselves believe in their own importance. This winter, this Christmas, would be the year they finally discovered whatever ineffable thing it was they were still looking for, discovered _themselves_. 

After she'd changed out of her own emblem of civic responsibility (SeeD uniform) and into something more Selphie (faded Sleater-Kinney t-shirt), she helped Yuffie pack: passport in the purse, oversized Wu-Tai Clan hoodie in the suitcase, potions over 3 ounces in a clear plastic bag. 

The rest of the evening passed in a frenzied rush to make their red-eye flight to visit Chu-Chu in Deling City. They checked their bags, sprinted through the terminal, unequipped their shoes to get through their metal detector, and finally reached the gate—only to discover that it was now their airship that was running late. It was one foggy Christmas Eve, and without Rudolph the Red-Beaked Chocobo around, the flight carrying their crew still hadn't arrived. 

"Gawd, Selphie, why don't _you_ just fly the airship?" 

"Heh. We'd be lucky to make it off the runway." Selphie might have once taken the controls of the Ragnarok, but she'd long since traded in her pilot's license for the rough-and-tumble job of maintaining Balamb Garden's social media accounts and tweeting updates on whether the cafeteria was out of hot dogs. (Things she hadn't updated recently: "Relationship Status: Single.") 

Since they wouldn't be leaving any time soon, Selphie popped in her earbuds and leaned back. She'd just made it through the opening stomp of _London Calling_ when a text from Chu-Chu flashed across her phone screen. 

*** * ***

Meanwhile, at Mr. Gency's Hospital in Deling City, one creature was still stirring on Christmas Eve—and it was, in fact, a mouse. Dr. Chu-Chu, M.D., was finishing up her last shift treating poison, paralysis, and petrification before her friends arrived from Balamb for vacation. "Take two Ethers and call me in the morning," she advised her patients. "Stop equipping that shield; it's cursed." "You have summoning sickness; wait another turn, and it'll clear up." 

She had just stuffed her white coat and remaining supply of Phoenix Down in her storage locker when one of her fellow medical residents stepped up to the locker beside her. 

"Ugh," said Porom. "Rough shift. I can't wait to get out of all this level C biohazard protection gear and take a load off." 

Porom took the ribbon out of her hair and stuffed it in her locker. 

"Ah, much better." 

Porom peered down at Chu-Chu. She had nothing but respect for her small pink friend, but it was not to look down on someone who was only three feet tall. "Chu-Chu, do you have any plans for Christmas?" 

Chu-Chu slapped her padlock on her locker. "Well, I don't celebrate your bizarre human religious holidays, but I've got some old friends from school visiting." 

"Great. 'Cause things have been a little wild down in the emergency room. We discovered Dr. Mario has been throwing pills at random into bottles, Dr. Ronfar got caught in bed with two of the interns and the anatomy dummy, Dr. Cottage flew his chocobo through his ex's living room window, and Dr. Date quit the hospital and left for a spin-off series." Porom shrugged and added by way of explanation, "It was the season finale." 

Chu-Chu's eyes went wide. "Oh my! Are we going chu find out what happens to them next season?" 

"Of course not; they've all been fired. Anyway, I need to transfer you from oncology to on-call-ogy. You can work tomorrow, right?" 

As a lifelong follower of the Chu-chu Tribe's Wondrous Mambo God, Chu-Chu was used to making some extra bucks by volunteering to work on human religious holidays. (The only part of Christmas that Chu-Chu knew or cared about was the mistletoe. Wink, wink.) But, this year she actually had _plans_ , ones she'd been looking forward to for months. "I just told chu. My friends are coming chu visit. Why can't chu do it?" 

Porom gave Chu-Chu a look admitting she was a terrible person but refusing to apologize for it. "I have to fly home to Mysidia and punch my idiot brother until he stops trying to set the house on fire. Come on, Chu-Chu, you're not even celebrating Christmas. Why can't your friends just come visit you at the hospital?" 

Chu-Chu sighed. Sometimes life would be a lot easier if she just could bring herself to be a jerk. "Fine, but chu owe me time off all of next YaoiCon." 

She fired off a text to her friends: "How about being doctors for a day?"

*** * ***

"Selphie, wake up! We're here! Merry Christmas!"

Selphie opened her eyes and forced her stiff neck up from her pillow to see Yuffie sitting over her and holding a bulging blue bag. "Oh! Is that a present? For me?" 

"No, that's the bag I barfed in." 

"Merry Christmas to you too, Yuffie." 

Selphie unbuckled her seatbelt, stretched, and stumbled down the aisle between the seats, still only half-awake. It wasn't anyone's typical Christmas morning, but soon she'd be with her loved ones, and that was what really counted, right? 

Chu-Chu was waiting for them just past the security checkpoint. Selphie and Yuffie rushed to her and squatted down so that Chu-Chu could wrap her fuzzy little arms around them in a long, tight hug. "I missed chu long time." 

And then they were three again: Balamb Garden's Garden Festival Committee, reunited for the first time in a year. 

"Missed chu too. I mean 'you.' I missed you too." 

They eventually broke the embrace. "Well, feliz kalikimaka, or whatever I've supposed chu say to you people." 

Chu-Chu started for the airport doors, but Selphie nodded towards the baggage claim. "Hold on, Yuffie's got an oversized bag we have to pick up." 

"Yeah, I brought my harp with me in case trouble breaks out. You never know." 

Chu-Chu made a sound midway between chortling and retching. "Chu brought your _what_?" 

"My combat harp," Yuffie repeated. "That's my job in SeeD now, you know. I'm a bard." 

"Chu probably could have just found one in the trash." 

"Well, this isn't just any harp. It's military grade." She retrieved the bulky, lyre-shaped package from the corner of the room, where the airport personnel had been forced to set it aside. "You don't have the license to equip this." 

"Wouldn't dream of it." 

Selphie had a special Christmas surprise planned for them. "Guess what I brought for Christmas breakfast? A paopu fruit! They had them when I was growing up on Destiny Islands. If you share one, it's supposed to make you a part of each other's lives forever. And we're going to be, right?" 

Selphie reached into her grocery bag from Giant Chocobo and retrieved a yellow, star-shaped fruit. A _squashed_ yellow, star-shaped fruit. Oops. She watched the remnants of the fruit drip juice down onto the terminal floor. "Probably shouldn't have tried to fit this in the overhead compartment. Well, we're still friends anyway, right?" 

Selphie couldn't be happier, in fact, that the three of them were together again. She hadn't seen Chu-Chu since Chu-Chu had married her dolphin husband, Franz. But for years, Yuffie and Chu-Chu had been the vice-presidents of her Garden Festival Committee—which was to say, they were the only other people whom Selphie had ever managed to talk into joining. They'd planned parties, mangled a few classic rock songs in their band, and even saved Christmas once or twice. 

And then Chu-Chu had to graduate and go off to become a doctor. University was great for bringing together people from all corners of the globe, bonding you together, and then making sure you never saw them again after they graduated and moved back home. Boo. 

"Really sorry to drag chu guys to the hospital on Churistmas," Chu-Chu apologized again. "But ottherwise, all they've got today is me and one new nurse who's supposed chu be joining us." 

Selphie shrugged. "Nah, it's fine. All I really care about today is that we're together. And we are." Holidays were normally great for spending time with your family, unless you were like Selphie and didn't _have_ a family, and then they were just a punch in the face. But as long as she was with her friends, she could feel certain that she belonged to this world just as much as anyone else. Because of them, she _mattered_ , whether or not she had siblings to shop for, aunts and uncles crowding the house, or parents asking why she wasn't married yet. 

[](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LuVcxX1ImZc)

They stepped out of the airport. A blast of cold winter wind immediately struck Selphie in the face, forcing her to button her coat all the way up and pull a knit hat over her short hair. After so many years away from Trabia, working in the mild climates of Balamb, it was great to have a _real_ white Christmas again. She missed watching the snow fall, huddling under her blanket, and body-checking everyone in hockey. 

Selphie flopped down in the snow and started to make an angel. Chu-Chu nudged her with one foot. "Hey, um, I don't know if I'm disrespecting your religion, but we need chu get to the hospital for my shift." 

Selphie sat back up, leaving behind a one-winged snow angel hellbent on bringing down a snowball to destroy the snow world. Of course. Sometimes she had to remind herself that she was a grown-up now. 

"Did you drive here?" 

"I walked." Chu-Chu bent over, raising her back. "Hang on." 

They'd only done this once or twice before. Selphie and Yuffie each grabbed one of Chu-Chu's shoulders as Chu-Chu began her "big big transformation" from a small pink mouse into a _giant_ pink mouse. Suddenly, the two human women were ten feet off the ground and hanging on for dear life as Chu-Chu carried them down the street. 

Of course, it was Christmas morning, so the streets and sidewalks were almost entirely empty, the city merely a silent backdrop now devoid of its actors and stagehands. That was just as well; there were fewer people to be terrified by the hot pink monstrosity stomping down their roads. "Do they let you walk on the street like this?" Selphie shouted over the rush of the wind. 

"I USUALLY USE THE CARPOOL LANE IF I'M CARRYING SOMEBODY." 

"Can we get something to eat?" Yuffie shouted. "I'm starving, and last night's dinner isn't with me anymore." 

*** * ***

At the local "Donut Plains" coffee shop, Biggs Darklighter was midway through making his third Kupo Nut latte of the morning. It sucked having to work on Christmas, but at least "barista" seemed like a relatively safe gig. There wasn't much risk of getting shot down by a TIE Fighter or being zapped by Tritoch or encountering any of the numerous other calamities that had killed him at various times in the past. 

And then the gigantic eyeball appeared at the drive-thru window. 

"Oh, God, no!" he exclaimed, reflexively hurling a pastry at it. 

"HELLO," thundered a voice, loud yet high-pitched. "UM, CAN I GET A LARGE COFFEE FOR SELPHIE, TWO PLAIN SUGAR DONUTS AND 'ANYTHING THAT DOESN'T TASTE LIKE COFFEE' FOR YUFFIE, AND ... DO CHU HAVE A BAGEL WITH SPIDERS IN IT?" 

Biggs cowered beneath the counter. Wasn't there supposed to be a nutcracker who came on Christmas to defeat the giant mouse? 

"Are you some kind of health inspector? _No_ , we don't have a bagel with spiders!" 

The giant eye pressed itself to the glass to peruse the interior. "OKAY, HOW ABOUT A _DONUT_ WITH SPIDERS?" 

"No!" 

"SPIDER PASTRY?" 

"There's nothing with spiders!" 

"WELL, CAN CHU MAYBE CHECK IF THERE'S A COBWEB IN THE BACK OR SOMETHING?" 

He raised a bag of Christmas Blend beans in hopes they would ward off the great pink beast. "No!" 

"ALL RIGHT, I'LL JUST HAVE A CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIE, THEN." 

*** * ***

Coffee in hand, the three ladies came to the doorstep of Mr. Gency's Hospital. Chu-Chu shrunk back to her regular size, depositing Selphie and Yuffie onto the doorstep. 

"Oh, this is a hospital for _people_ ," Yuffie said. 

Chu-Chu stared at her and raised an eyebrow. 

"I mean, like, human people. I thought you'd be a mouse doctor. You know, like, you're not getting enough exercise, so run in this wheel for thirty minutes a day." 

"Oh. Well, honestly, I wanted to go home to Shevat, but..." She sighed. "Well, it's kinda in the middle of nowhere and not doing so great these days. Which means they need the help, but, chu know, Franzy-poo is a DJ, and he wouldn't get many gigs there. We really had chu come here if we both wanted a job." 

Selphie nodded. Sometimes she wondered if her career successes only came about because she was too much of a loser to have to worry about what her significant other was going to do. "So, you're like a veterinarian in reverse. A mouse who takes care of sick humans. Is that a nairaniretev?" 

They were still standing outside the hospital when an ambulance pulled up. Out rushed two Koopa Paramedics carrying Wedge Antilles on a stretcher. 

Chu-Chu quickly leapt into action. She rolled herself up into a ball so she could hurry along beside the paramedics as they rushed Wedge into surgery. Selphie and Yuffie jogged after them, aware that they'd quickly gone from a holiday celebration to something much more serious. "What happened?" 

"Pack of Malboros," the paramedic explained. 

"Yeah, he really should quit smoking." 

"No, _Mal_ boros. We've got a couple of wild ones that wandered into town, and they breathed on him." 

Chu-Chu drew in her breath. Oh, dear. Malboro breath was never good news. "All right, Selphie, Yuffie, I'm going chu need your help, but chu have to listen carefully and do exactly as I say. This is going to be a delicate operation." 

Yuffie rolled her eyes. "Oh, no, you can't fool me," she said. "I know I'm pretty clueless about a lot of things, but even _I've_ watched enough television to know doctors just spend all day taking Vicodin and having sex. And then someone always plays that 'this is how to save a life' song." 

Chu-Chu stomped her foot. "Hey! This is serious, Yuffie! Don't chu know about the Hippocratic Oath?" 

"Yeah, but we're not robots, so we can hurt as many humans as we want, right?" 

Chu-Chu sighed. Well, what could you expect from the woman who had once jumped into Ifrit's Cavern because "the guy from the Foo Fighters told me that fire doesn't really cause burns"? 

As Wedge was wheeled into the operating room, a gray color was already working its way up his legs. "Slow petrification," Chu-Chu diagnosed the condition. "Selphie, hand me a gold needle." 

Selphie fetched the magical item from the cabinet. Chu-Chu carefully peeled off the sterile wrapper and jabbed it into Wedge's leg. Yuffie flinched at the sight of the needle. "Oh, Gawd, this is why I hate doctors. They're always singing off-key songs while injecting butter or whatever into your legs." 

The gray color receded from Wedge's leg. He sat bolt upright, waving his arms. Selphie's fist reflexively flew out and socked him in the jaw. She cringed, expecting Chu-Chu to yell at her, but Chu-Chu just said, "Good work, Selphie; he's no longer confused." 

But then a monitor beeped out a warning. Chu-Chu looked over at the menu screen. "Oh no. His HP's dropping; we're losing him! Yuffie, potion, stat!" 

Yuffie checked the cabinet and blanched at the array of bottles on display: Hi-Potions, Cure Potions, Tonics, Lemon Gels, Strong Medicines. "Oh, Gawd, these all seem the same to me." 

"Anything. Quick!" 

Yuffie handed Chu-Chu one of the bottles, and she forced it into Wedge's mouth. The status monitor briefly jumped back into the green, but quickly started to drop again. "I think he's been poisoned. Selphie, get me an antidote; Yuffie, echo screen." 

Selphie handed over the antidote as quick as possible. But Yuffie, again, was baffled by the items on display in the cabinet. "Remind me what an echo screen looks like." 

"It's actually just grass." 

"Seriously?" Yuffie sounded like she didn't believe it. "How about we just Elixir him instead?" She grabbed the one shining vial of Elixir from the cupboard and—despite Chu-Chu's attempts to stop her—splashed its contents on Wedge's face. 

"No! Yuffie, those are really expensive! The hospital wants us to stockpile them and never use them, ever!" 

But, the Elixir appeared to have alleviated Wedge's woes. His status monitor jumped back into the green. The three women waited, expectantly, for something else to go wrong. But nothing happened. Gradually, they started to calm down. Chu-Chu patted Wedge on the hand. "All right," she said. "I think chu're going to be just fine." 

"That'll be a new one." 

Selphie was so impressed she was almost stunned. Wow. Chu-Chu was, like, a real doctor! She was so smart and skilled that she could play it completely cool, like a Zen master of smartness. It made Selphie proud and happy to see her friends—the people she'd known since they were wee, innocent first-year students—going on to become accomplished professionals, even though she felt a little foolish that her _own_ career didn't demand nearly the same grace under fire. A stressful day at Selphie's job was deciding how much to spend on balloon animals. 

Yuffie knelt down so she could slap a hand on Chu-Chu's shoulder. "Good work, Chu-Chu. Are we done for the day? Can we go home and watch _How the Grinch Stole Christmas_? I'm hoping the Grinch wins this year." 

Chu-Chu shook her head. It was actually kind of cute how Yuffie thought she could slide by with so little work. "No, there's probably plenty of people to see in the emergency room. Unfortunately, we're short-staffed today. None of us is over 5'1". Also, we don't have many people working here." 

"Five one AND A HALF," Selphie corrected. 

The three of them headed out of the operating room where they'd been treating Wedge and crossed the hospital to the emergency room. "We're going chu need to triage and treat the sickest patients first," Chu-Chu said as they walk-and-talked. "Someone comes in on their last heart container, we treat that guy right away. People who just saved their game or who still have 30 extra lives, they can wait." 

Selphie started at one side of the waiting room, where a bald space marine was slumped down in his chair. "I've been shot," he gasped as he clawed at his face. "Oh, Lord, all I see is red splotches everywhere. Am I going to die?" 

Selphie stepped back, horrified. What did she even say to someone in such a condition? She hadn't thought to work on her bedside manner. She was still struggling for what to say to this poor man when Chu-Chu popped up. "Oh, chu'll be fine. Just duck behind a waist-high wall for a few minutes and call me tomorrow if things haven't cleared up." 

Yuffie approached them and jerked her thumb towards a man sitting on the other side of the emergency room. "Hey, Chu-Chu. I've got a guy who seems kinda weird. What are the diagnostic criteria for petrification?" 

"Well, is his body made out of stone?" 

"No." 

"OK, he's not petrified, then." Chu-Chu, sensing that this would need further attention, followed Yuffie's lead over to the mystery patient. "What's wrong with him?" 

"Um, he doesn't have a pulse. That's usually bad, right?" 

At least there were a _few_ things Yuffie knew about being a doctor. "Yeah. He could be undead in some way," Chu-Chu said. "I don't really know much about undeath 'cause it was an elective I didn't take, but I'm sure we can figure it out." 

Yuffie hurried alongside her, eager to get to the bottom of this mystery. "Is he a werewolf? Maybe he's a werewolf." 

"It's never lycanthropy." 

They came to Yuffie's mystery patient. He was slumped down in the chair, moving but not particularly alert, like Quistis before she'd had her morning coffee. He seemed familiar, and after a moment Chu-Chu placed him: Biggs, the barista who'd served them at the Donut Plains coffee shop that morning. Whoa. Déjà chu. Something must have been gone bad quickly; a few hours, he seemed perfectly lively when he was hiding under the counter and screaming. Maybe the pack of Malboros had gotten to him. 

Chu-Chu shrugged. "Maybe he's a ghoul? A zombie? I don't know even what the difference is between a ghoul and a zombie." 

Selphie held her head in her hands. "Oh, man. They taught us a mnemonic for this in my SeeD training; I'm trying to remember what it was. 'If it's a ghoul, I pity the fool; if it's a zombie...' Dang, I don't remember. What even rhymes with zombie? Yuffie, do you remember?" 

"Tonberry? Mom bee?" 

"Maybe a ghoul eats flesh and a zombie eats brains?" Selphie guessed. "I dunno?" 

"I think a ghoul is smarter than a zombie," Chu-Chu said. 

"Oh, yeah, than what's a _ghast_?" 

"Heck if I know. Some kind of magic-using ghost?" 

"That's a lich." 

"Right, right," Chu-Chu said. "Wait, isn't a revenant also a magic-using ghost?" 

"Palm tree." Yuffie's head snapped up. "Palm tree rhymes with zombie." 

Selphie clutched her hands to her face as if it could make her think better. "Gengar? Isn't that also some kind of ghost?" 

"No, my friend told me _all_ about Gengars, and that's a Pokémon." 

"If it hops, it's a jiangshi," Selphie said. "I know that much." 

It was a medical mystery, but something told Chu-Chu that if they went about their day, they'd coincidentally run into something else that would inspire a solution. Chu-Chu slapped her paws together. "All right, we obviously don't know anything, and I need to go say hello to the new nurse. 

She curled up into a ball, bounced back to the front lobby—and stopped dead in her tracks. " _Hello, nurse_." 

Standing at the front door of the hospital was a man with a body out of Greek sculpture and a face out of a How To Draw Manga book. Despite the winter cold, the front of his military overcoat was open to reveal his toned abs. Three belts criss-crossed his leather pants; hooked in one of them was an axe-like weapon that also had two shotgun barrels sticking out of it. Somewhere off camera, a fan blew a stream of sakura blossoms past his long, billowing blue hair. 

Chu-Chu offered a trembling claw. "Dr. Chu-Chu," she said. "I'm going to enjoy having you working under me." She winked. 

"Cerulean Deuteronomy." He spoke with a British accent, in a deep yet refined voice that could have melted the pants off even Yuffie. 

"Gawd, who's this bozo?" 

Well, maybe not. 

Selphie appeared at the back of the lobby, her squashed paopu fruit dripping a trail of juice along the floor. "Whoa, Chu-Chu. You didn't tell me I was gonna be working with Nurse McBishie," she whispered. Santa had certainly delivered under _her_ tree. 

"Yeah, I could definitely graze _his_ anatomy." Chu-Chu nudged Selphie. "D'you bring any of that mistletoe?" 

McBishie stopped to finish the last of his Donut Plains coffee before tossing the cup in the trash. He was too troubled and angst-ridden to recycle. "Could you use my hands with anything?" 

"Could I _ever_ ," sighed Chu-Chu. "Actually, yeah, we have a mysterious undead patient, and we're going to need chu see his bloodwork. Can chu get that, snookums?" 

*** * ***

[](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CUemOvJG9qo)

While McBishie checked on their mysterious undead patient, the Garden Festival Committee took a break for lunch.

It was true that Christmas lunch wasn't usually spent in a hospital, but sometimes you just had to make do. And when the cafeteria had ketchup chips, it was actually pretty awesome. Selphie could never get those in Balamb. 

"Gawd, I hope we find out what's wrong with that undead dude," Yuffie said. "It just seems like it would really suck to be a werewolf. Especially if, like, you were named 'Remus Lupin' and then you happen to get bit by a werewolf. That really sucks." 

Selphie still felt a little sheepish about the fact that, after ten years in SeeD, she still couldn't tell her Team Edward from her Team Jacob. "I don't really have that much experience dealing with the undead," she admitted. "I mean, sure, when I was younger, I had one of those possessed cameras; you know, the kind where the spirit of some dead person appears in every photo when you develop the film." She sighed. "Stupid, sexy ghosts. Always photobombing me." 

That reminded her. She whipped out her phone and snapped a picture of her lunch. 

"What are you doing? Gawd, Selphie, that's just a cafeteria tray; you don't need to take a picture of that." 

"I'm an instagramatarian. I'm not allowed to eat anything unless I can take a picture of it first." 

While they were waiting to Chu-Chu to return with her own lunch, Selphie reached into her bag and took out a flat, wrapped package. "All right, Yuffie, it took me a long time to find this, but I think you're gonna like it." She'd long since outgrown the age when Christmas was about having new Pokémon toys bestowed upon her; these days, it was more about the bestowing. 

Yuffie unwrapped the gift. It was a copy of _Twenty '90s Hip-Hop Classics, Arranged for Harp_. "Ohmigawd, it's perfect!" She clutched the book to her chest, and for a rare moment, even Yuffie managed to appear genuinely moved. "Thanks, Selphie; you're amazing." 

"Merry Christmas!" 

Then Yuffie hung her head. "Gawd, Selphie, I'm real sorry; I totally didn't think to get you anything. I've guess I've just been busy lately, what with sleeping and everything. Oh wait! I guess you can have this." She reached under the table and retrieved a small blue bag, which she placed on the table between them. 

"...is that the bag you barfed in?" 

"Well, it seemed like you wanted it earlier!" Yuffie glanced over her shoulder. "Or I could go steal you something from the Toys For Tots tree." 

"Please don't." 

Selphie didn't actually mind so much that Yuffie hadn't thought to buy (or steal) her anything. Yuffie had already given Selphie the gift of her company, of coming out here to Deling City for this reunion. And once Chu-Chu returned to the table with a lunch tray full of spiders, it felt like nothing had changed over the years, right down to the bizarre foods Chu-Chu always ate. They were all here as in olden days, happy golden days of yore. And all Selphie really needed for Christmas was to know that after all of these years, after all of the victories and tragedies and changes that had intervened in their lives, they were still friends, that there was still some common thread that bound them no matter how much they'd changed since they'd first gotten to know each other. 

She couldn't even _remember_ now how they'd first met at Garden, when she was a SeeD and they were still students. Being friends with Yuffie and Chu-Chu just seemed like one of those immutable facts of the universe that had existed since time immemorial. Of _course_ Yuffie and Chu-Chu were there in her life, just as salt was always made of one sodium atom and one chlorine and even-numbered versions of Windows were always terrible. 

"Well, I've got an announcement chu make. I've been looking for the right time to open my mouth, but I guess I should just spit it out, huh?" Chu-Chu said, then immediately added, "That's what she said." 

Selphie and Yuffie leaned in expectantly. 

"I'm going chu be a mom!" 

"Oh, gawd. Grossness. Is it going to have flippers or fur or both?" 

Chu-Chu stared at her. "We're _adopting_ , silly. Chu know Cid and Edea still have a lot of connections with adoption agencies, and Franz and I had the word out to let us know if they were ever trying chu place a Chu-chupolin baby. Well, the call finally came in. We're going chu be adopting a baby girl!" 

"Congrats!" Selphie said. At this point, the appropriately joyous reactions to all of her friends' various life events—engagements, weddings, babies, new experience levels—tumbled out of her mouth basically on autopilot. It was fun at first, then just kinda depressing. The only news _Selphie_ ever had to post on Facebook was about Candy Crush Saga. Even Chu-Chu had a career and a family now, and she was a three foot tall pink mouse that kept humping people's legs. When did everyone get past her? 

From Chu-Chu's expression, it was obvious she'd be expecting her friends to be a little more excited. "Isn't that great?" she prodded them. 

"I dunno, Chu-Chu," Selphie said. "It just seems like such a big change, picturing you as a parent." 

Chu-Chu winked. "I know, right? I'm going to be a hott MILF." 

"OK, maybe not." 

Yuffie felt obligated to interject some exciting barding news of her own lest she appear too much of a loser. "Hey, guys, guess what? Last month I went to a weekend retreat on current developments in hiding during battle." 

Selphie couldn't help but cut in, "I guess 'retreat' would be the right word for that." Chu-Chu snorted. 

"Aw, c'mon, you guys. What if you ask some guy off the street to hide with your nuclear launch codes, and he picks some crappy, played-out hiding place, like an air vent or a trash can, and gets found? The only way you can be assured of top-quality, industry-standard hiding is to hire an Accredited Minstrel Professional®." 

"Is _that_ what they're calling it now?" Chu-Chu said. "I thought it was 'you spoon—'" 

"DON'T SAY THAT!" Yuffie interjected. She reached into her pocket, whipped out a _Your Minstrel Professional® And You_ pamphlet that she'd apparently had at the ready this whole time, and pointed to a passage inside. "According to the International Congress of Dancers, Bards, and Songpersons, the 'S' word is 'an outdated, offensive term that fails to recognize how Accredited Minstrel Professionals® provide the buffing backbone of today's contemporary fighting forces.' It's not funny, you guys." 

This assertion did not seem to reduce Selphie and Chu-Chu's amusement in the least. 

Yuffie continued, "The I.C.D.B.S. recommends more modern epithets, such as 'You lovestruck Accredited Minstrel Professional®!' or 'You asshole!'" 

"Okay, Yuffie." Selphie didn't sound entirely convinced, but she didn't want to prolong the argument during their big holiday reunion—or maybe she was just hungry. At any rate, it was time to eat. 

Chu-Chu clasped her hands together and bowed her head to say grace. "Dear Wondrous Mambo God, on this heathen holiday I don't really understand, please bless this meal. Thank you. Amen." 

She then opened what she assumed was a bag full of Selphie's homemade Christmas cookies. 

"...chu know, I don't feel like eating anymore."

*** * ***

As they left the cafeteria, the tips of Chu-Chu's tiny claws were flying across the 5.1-inch screen of her Samsung Galaxy S® 5 phone, now with 2.5 GHz Snapdragon processor and preloaded with Android® 4.4 Kit-Kat. Order now at your local retailer.

Chu-Chu looked up from the screen and nudged Selphie. "Hey, Selphie, help me come up with a sexting pseudonym so I can start sending anonymous dirty pics to the new nurse. Which of these do you like best: Scarlett Passion, Rosaria Rendezvous, Monica Nombre?" 

Selphie peered over Chu-Chu's shoulder at the phone. "Are the four of us the only people working here today?" 

"That's right." 

"Yeah, I think he's gonna know it's you." 

A music theme with an insistent drum beat and angelic choirs heralded the arrival of McBishie himself, back with the results of Biggs's bloodwork. 

"Thanks, sexypants," Chu-Chu said, taking the papers from him. "All right, McBishie and I will see what we can do for this undead guy. Selphie, Yuffie, can chu guys handle the emergency room?" 

Selphie pulled Chu-Chu aside. "Hey, no fair! _I_ wanted to go with McBishie." 

"I saw him first!" Chu-Chu insisted. "Keep your Power Gloves off him." 

"You're already married! Also—and I hate to have to keep reminding you about this—you're a three foot tall pink mouse." 

Chu-Chu nudged Selphie. "Maybe we could try to set him up with Yuffie. I bet she knows all about spooning now." 

"'Outdated and offensive,' you guys." 

"Fine," Selphie said. "How about we settle this rock-paper-scissors?" 

There was no game in the world that it was easier to beat Chu-Chu at. 

"Ready? 1... 2... 3!" 

Chu-Chu, as she had in every single one of the approximately three hundred games she'd played with Selphie over the years, threw scissors and winked suggestively. 

"Rock beats scissors," Selphie reported the inevitable outcome. "I win." 

Chu-Chu pouted but accepted her defeat. "Fine. Chu go can with McBishie, and I'll go with Yuffie. But don't forget chu remind him that there's a naughty MILF waiting for him in the operating room." 

*** * ***

Chu-Chu and Yuffie left to go check in on their mysterious undead patient, whom McBishie had relocated to a hospital room on the third floor. 

Chu-Chu was already examining Biggs's bloodwork as they walked. "T-Virus cells?" she read. "That can't be right. Ah, well, I guess we can run with it." She looked up just in time to avoid colliding with a save point. "Hey, Yuffie? Could you go grab me some Sacrosil? The generic name is holy water." 

"Yeah, sure." Yuffie dashed off to storage. 

By the time Chu-Chu reached the third floor, Biggs had already gotten out of bed and was shuffling down the hallway in an off-balance lurch. "BRAIIIINS," he moaned. Chu-Chu sighed. She had been hoping for a more philosophical zombie. 

Yuffie arrived and handed Chu-Chu a vial of holy water. It looked like regular water, but with a subtle, supernatural glow to it. "What's the deal with this stuff?" Yuffie asked. "Did an angel gargle with it?" 

Chu-Chu uncorked the vial and stood facing the slobbering, shuffling Biggs. After a moment's pause, she handed it to Yuffie instead. "You've got a better throwing arm; you throw it on him." 

Yuffie hadn't forgotten everything from the days she spent flunking out of ninja school. She wound up and hurled the vial in a perfect arc so that it turned upside down just as it arced over Biggs's head. The holy water poured out on Biggs. As soon as it touched him, he stopped lurching and twitching and simply slumped to the ground, unconscious. Chu-Chu and Yuffie lifted him up and placed him back in bed. 

"Wow," Yuffie said. "That was, like, a miracle drug." 

Indeed, holy water was just that. 

But, to Chu-Chu, this only deepened this mystery. "Huh," she said. "That stuff's only supposed to work on the common T-Virus, and I thought everyone got vaccinated against that these days. Don't chu get your MMR at 1 year and your zombification at 16 months?" 

"Well, those things are bad for you, aren't they?" Yuffie said. "Donald Trump told me that getting vaccinated would turn you into a Cactuar." 

Chu-Chu facepawed. "Oh, brother." This was going to be a long afternoon. 

*** * ***

Meanwhile, Selphie was helping McBishie measure out the proper number of maiden's kisses for a patient who had been turned into a frog. "How many kisses is a centikiss?" she said, holding up the lipstick-stained sheet of paper. 

"One one-hundredth." 

"Right, I should have known that." It wasn't like the old, pre-metric days, where you had to know that there were 5 pecks in a smooch and 3 smooches in a kiss. She carefully held up the sheet of paper and cut off a tiny corner. "Good thing these come on graph paper, huh?" 

Truth be told, she was still distracted by Chu-Chu's announcement of impending MILFhood. Partly, she was just annoyed by the thought that her friends would have less time for _her_. But she also worried what they must think of her, going nowhere and still living like she was twenty-two. A fear gripped her that perhaps, subconsciously, she'd been hanging around Yuffie just to feel better about herself, to look accomplished only because she put herself next to someone whose primary life achievement was learning about "current developments in hiding." 

McBishie gazed out the window with a haunted look that said: I have a tragic, angst-ridden backstory that probably involves genetic engineering and/or my girlfriend dying. Selphie felt obligated to state, "Hey, McBishie, don't worry about Chu-Chu; she's harmless. But if she starts giving you any trouble, just give me a shout." 

He chuckled. "Is McBishie my name now?" He turned away from the window and smiled ruefully as his hair fell artfully over one eye, a pose immediately replicated in dozens of pieces of fanart. "I suppose there are far worse things to be known by." 

Oops. She realized she'd already completely forgotten his real name and had just called him "bishie" to his face. Ah, well, why not run with it? She was never going to see him again after today, which meant that he was the perfect guy for her to stupidly flirt with and feel desirable again. Heaven only knew it had been a long time since she'd been with Zell, even longer since Irvine. And she wasn't about to count any of the guys she'd been on only a few dates with before they sent her a text message reminding her that her name was an anagram for HI I'M LITTLE PEST. 

She used her go-to line for picking up bishounen: "So, you're probably a tortured soul who just needs the love of a good woman to redeem him..." 

"I need a pork chop," said McBishie. 

"You _what_?" Selphie said before recognizing that McBishie had already moved onto the next patient: a vampire hunter who was looking rather under the weather. Without really understanding what she was doing, she retrieved a pork chop from the freezer and passed it to McBishie. "Eat up." 

But McBishie just set the pork chop down on the floor. The vampire hunter stepped over it and immediately stretched. "Ahh, much better." 

Selphie gasped. The miracles of modern power-up science would never cease. 

"I take it you're not a doctor?" McBishie said to Selphie. "What do you do for a living?" 

"I tweet stuff." She immediately realized how lame that sounded and tried again. "I mean, not _just_ Twitter, obviously; I also post a _ton_ on Facebook." Sigh. One more try. "People think I'm cool on the Internet." 

There was no joy in Deling City, for mighty Selphie was striking out. At this rate, she'd be lucky to get even a centikiss from McBishie. 

An Italian plumber came running into the emergency room. (We can't mention his name because that would be a HIPAA violation.) "Ow ow ow ow ow ow!" he cried, clutching the flaming rear end of his overalls. Selphie, wanting to look useful in front of McBishie, grabbed the hose from the hospital courtyard and hosed down the anonymous plumber. 

"Booyaka," she proclaimed. 

"Bless you," said McBishie. 

"Oh, no, 'booyaka' is a lingo I'm trying to spread. There's also 'Mamimume--' oh, never mind." As McBishie turned away, she gave up and let out a sigh. This was what sucked about having to meet new people. She had a whole life story, a whole set of traits and quirks and moments that they didn't know the slightest thing about. How could they advise and support her? She couldn't have her friends and lovers be people who didn't even know "booyaka" meant; she didn't _want_ to start all over. Indeed, the more history, the more ups and downs she accumulated, the more she wanted the people who had been there all along, the people who had known her at all of the stages of her life. 

And then those very people came marching into the room: Chu-Chu stomping in a huff rather than rolling, Yuffie stumbling behind. "Selphie, I need chu check: _You_ got the T-Virus vaccine, didn't chu?" 

"Um ... maybe not?" 

Chu-Chu gave her the stink eye. 

Selphie held up her hands in self-defense. "I had some kind of allergy or something! They couldn't give me the shot! I remember having to fill out all this paperwork because of it." She shrugged apologetically. "I'm sorry, I don't have all the details off the top of my head; it was a long time ago." 

She was expecting Chu-Chu to snap at her, but instead Chu-Chu whirled on Yuffie. "Well, gee, Yuffie, I hope chu don't get infected by a zombie and then get Selphie sick, too." 

"Gawd, whatever. I can just hide under a cardboard box if I need to; I passed all my certs on that." 

Chu-Chu rolled her eyes. "Anyway, how are things going in the E.R., Selphie?" 

"Well, we've treated a bunch of people, but I'm pretty sure McBishie thinks I'm an idiot." 

Chu-Chu jabbed Selphie with her elbow. "Oh yeah? Did chu find out whether he has a sexy bunny to light his menorah this Christmas?" 

"THAT'S EASTER! AND HANUKKAH!" Yuffie yelled. "Gawd, Chu-Chu, don't you know _anything_ about Christmas?" 

"Um, it's an annual holiday that celebrates the birth of the Trans-Siberian Orchestra, I think. Also, there's something about Santa and elves." Chu-Chu let out a dreamy sigh. "Ah, I love elves. I get older, they stay the same ... because they're immortal." 

Biggs, the human-turned-zombie-turned-human whom Chu-Chu had just treated, came stumbling out of the stairwell. 

"Hey!" Chu-Chu stamped her foot. As the only small pink mouse at the hospital, she'd learned she had to be assertive if she wanted people to take her seriously and realize she could walk on two feet. "Sir, chu need to be lying down and resting! You were just a zombie." 

"BRAAIIIIINS," moaned Biggs. 

Yuffie snorted. "See, Chu-Chu? I bet your holy water didn't do anything after all. You should listen to that nice lady on _The View_ ; she said that not equipping hats can cure all your medical problems." 

Chu-Chu rolled her eyes. "Yuffie, the scientific benefits of holy water are well-established in peer-reviewed journals like _Supernature_ and _Paraphysics Review Letters_. Chu can't go taking medical advice from some celebrity who isn't even a priest." 

She stepped closer to Biggs to investigate him. He had a bite mark in his arm that Chu-Chu didn't remember seeing a few minutes earlier. Was there a _second_ zombie wandering around the hospital somewhere that had bitten Biggs? 

Chu-Chu tossed some more holy water on Biggs, and the four of them—the Garden Festival Committee and Nurse McBishie—carried him back to his room on the third floor. No sooner had they gotten him back to bed than did Wedge, the man whom Chu-Chu had treated in surgery earlier in the day, shamble around the corner, also groaning and babbling about brains. 

Chu-Chu silently mouthed her astonishment. "Are chu serious? What is _with_ these people? Why haven't they gotten the T-Virus vaccine?" 

She threw up her paws in resignation. "All right, fine. If we have a zombie outbreak, we need to get chu two protected." She took the ribbon out of her floppy pink hair and handed it to Selphie. "Here, Selphie; I'm already vaccinated, so chu can have mine. Yuffie, my friend Porom should have another one in her locker down on the first floor that we can get chu." 

Selphie and Yuffie nodded and followed Chu-Chu towards the elevator. They'd have safety in numbers if they all traveled together. Chu-Chu glanced over her shoulder. "McBishie, darling, chu hold down the fort while we're gone." 

As the three women took the elevator down to the first floor, they were all on edge. Who knew how many more zombies might be wandering the hospital at this point? They advanced steadily towards the storage lockers, torn between wanting to sprint to safety and being afraid of what lurked around the next corner. 

Suddenly, a large zombie spider jumped through the window from the courtyard, throwing glass shards everywhere. "Yuffie, look out!" Selphie yelled. 

Selphie glanced around, hoping there might be a grenade launcher in a box randomly placed about the hospital. Failing to see one, she instead used a strand of Christmas lights to tie together two plastic candy canes and fashion a crude, festive set of nunchaku. (UK readers: Please substitute "crude, festive sticks of death.") 

But Chu-Chu simply transformed into giant mode and devoured the spider. "Oof. I'm _stuffed_ ," she proclaimed. "Yuffie, are chu okay? You didn't get bitten, did—" She stopped and looked around. Where had Yuffie gone? 

Yuffie crawled out of the Santa's Workshop diorama in the courtyard and took off her elf hat. "I told you I'm good at hiding now! You don't need to worry about me. Besides, I've got my combat harp, remember?" 

"Chu know that's not a real weapon." 

"Gawd, yes it is!" 

Yuffie sighed and rolled her eyes, but they reached Porom's storage locker without any further incident. Chu-Chu consulted her phone to look up her friend's locker combination and then spun the lock open. Among useless junk like Bomb Fragments and Lunar Curtains, she quickly located the Ribbon that Porom had left there the previous evening. "Here chu go, Yuffie." 

"Rad, thanks," Yuffie said as he wrapped the ribbon around her arm. 

"It goes on your head, Yuffie. Like a helmet." 

"Fine. Geez." Yuffie tied a bow in her hair, but not without further complaining, "People are gonna think I'm cosplaying _Kiki's Delivery Service_." 

Now properly armored, they hurried back to the third floor to deal with the zombies. By the time they returned, the infection had spread to nearly a dozen people, all shuffling about aimlessly and groaning. 

"McBishie? Are chu okay?" Chu-Chu called. "I hope they didn't touch a single hair on your gorgeous, flawless head." 

McBishie emerged from one of the hospital rooms, holding up an empty bottle. "I'm fine, but we're out of holy water." 

Chu-Chu exhaled. "Oof. All right, chu handsome beast, I need chu to go down to the basement and bring up all the Sacrosil you can find. Mambo only knows how many people we have wandering around without the T-Virus vaccine, and we can't let this turn into a full-on zombie apocalypse." 

He nodded and sprinted off, cape billowing behind him. 

Meanwhile, it hadn't taken long for Yuffie to start chafing at the prospect of taking advice from a qualified medical professional. _How come I gotta wear this dumb ribbon when that McBishie guy doesn't even have a shirt?_ In a fit of defiance, Yuffie yanked her ribbon off and threw it in the trash. What did the Deling Medical Association _really_ know about diseases, anyway? 

The zombified Wedge shambled towards one of the hospital rooms, where two street fighters were recuperating from a mandatory patch. "Whoa! Hey, stop!" Selphie raced to stop Wedge, flung herself at him, and tackled him to the floor before he could bite any of the living people. 

Chu-Chu commanded, "Yuffie, quick, get me a bottled water." 

Yuffie grabbed a generic bottled water from the vending machine and handed it to Chu-Chu. Chu-Chu then set it on the floor and bowed her head over it. "Dear Wondrous Mambo God, please bless this water that I might use it to save these foolish humans," she said, her hands clasped in prayer. She passed the bottle back to Yuffie, who chucked it at Wedge and restored him to life. "Great. Give me another one to bless." 

Selphie got off Wedge's back and stood up. "Chu-Chu, I'm a little concerned by the theological implications of this." 

Chu-Chu snorted. "Well, we wouldn't even be in this mess in the first place if chu had told your human friends to listen to their doctors. I hope you've at least _learned_ something from this debacle; chu should never let a crisis go to waste." 

"Yeah, well, in Wutai, the word for 'crisis' is made up of two characters, one for 'danger' and one for 'OH SHIT I'M GONNA DIE.'" 

As Selphie tried to restrain the zombies, Chu-Chu blessed the next bottle of water, and Yuffie hurled Sacrosil at the zombies from a safe distance, none of the trio looked particularly pleased with each other. Selphie certainly hadn't intended for their Christmas reunion to turn out anything like _this_. She'd hoped for something fun, something life-affirming, something more like their previous big night together. 

*** * ***

[](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q3rsFb79NdU)

_Several years earlier..._

Selphie clapped a hand on her friends' shoulders as they marched out of their graduation ceremony. "This is so awesome! You guys are both SeeDs now! And to think I knew you when you were just first-years." 

"Do you guys think I should go with the classic, battle-tested _Apollo's_ Harp or the more contemporary, trendy _Lamia's_ Harp? I can't decide." 

"Where are the bishounen? I was promised more bishounen." 

Well, if the graduates themselves weren't going to be properly excited, Selphie would do it on their behalf. She bounced down the hallway, pumping her fists in the air. "SeeD! SEED! SEEEEEEED!" she exclaimed. (It was a lot funnier in Japanese.) 

They followed the throng of students, family, and Garden staff as they moved down the hall and outside—or, rather, the crowd bumped and jostled the girls in that direction, and they did their best not to get trampled. 

Somewhere along the way, they managed to run into Yuffie's father, Godo, and stopped to take a family picture. "Ah, Yuffie, your bow's all crooked!" Selphie grabbed the scarf of her friend's SeeD uniform and adjusted it. 

Yuffie had never cared much about her sartorial sense—she'd once gotten through two-thirds of an adventure before realizing she'd forgotten to button her pants—and tried to squirm away. "It's really not that big a—" 

"Say 'fuzzy pickles'!" Selphie shouted before her flash fired. _Click_. She looked down at her camera and sighed. "Hang on, we're going to have to take another one; I got the vengeful spirit of Old Man Mackenzie on this exposure." 

"KISARAGI!" But, for once, it wasn't one of her instructors infuriated at her juvenile delinquency. Instead, Quistis brushed through the crowd and put a hand on Yuffie's shoulder. "Congrats, again. We're looking forward to finally having a bard on staff at SeeD." 

"Yeah, I was reading _Your Minstrel Professional® And You_ , and it said that improperly stacked buffs result in 3.5 million gil in lost GDP annually and a net 0.7 star decrease in battle ranking!" 

"Uh, sure. Anyway, I mostly wanted to tell you that Xu and I are having a celebration at our house." 

Soon they were driving Selphie's yellow Beetle to Quistis's house, with a few detours along the way: the convenience store so that Yuffie could grab some ice cream and Sunny D, the karaoke box to belt out a few TLC covers, and a vacant parking lot because Chu-Chu had always wanted to try driving a car even though she couldn't really see over the dashboard. 

Graduation wasn't the end of their responsibilities, wasn't the last hurdle they'd be asked to overcome. But for tonight, they could look at Yuffie and Chu-Chu's accomplishments and believe they could carry themselves past any obstacle. Tonight, it didn't matter that Yuffie was usually out dropping rhymes at open mic night while Quistis usually stayed home to grade papers over classical music, or that Raijin would soon be raking in the Blitzball dollars while Seifer was paying restitution from his attempt to defraud the Balamb Lottery. They would let themselves believe that every last trait and quirk made them special and important; they would celebrate their histories; they would sing the song of themselves. 

By the time they got to Quistis and Xu's house, most of Selphie's SeeD friends were already milling about the yard: Irvine flirting with the undergrads, Squall off to the side and scowling, Fujin drunk enough to start talking in complete sentences. Selphie went to grab a beer and ended up being cornered by Nida and forced to listen to him drone on with one of his boring stories. "Hey, Selphie, did you hear I'm getting married?" 

"Save a chocobo, ride a cowboy?" 

"WHEN IN THE COURSE OF HUMAN HISTORY..." 

"...whatever." 

Someone screamed. "AIEEE! There's a huge spider on the grill!" 

"Yeah, it's not done yet; I need chu give it a few more minutes." 

Quistis flung the spider aside. "You can't grill that!" 

"Sorry, Instructor Trepe." 

But she was given a kindly smile. "It's just Quistis now." And they realized how much _Quistis_ had been waiting for this, too, so that she could treat them as the equals they'd become, unfettered by the restraints of being their teacher. "You know, when I passed my SeeD exam, I ditched the SeeD ball and spent the whole night on the Garden roof with a certain other lovely graduate." 

Selphie poked her friends in the shoulder. "Yuffie and Chu-Chu have been dying to get up there." 

"Huh? We have?" 

Quistis shook her head. "Oh, well, they locked up the roof after Biggs got blown off by a strong gust of wind and killed." 

But now that it was a challenge, now that it was another barrier to prove they could overcome, Chu-Chu was all over it. "Let's go!" She transformed into her giant mode and lowered a hand to pick up her friends. 

Selphie looked surprised. "I thought you didn't want us doing this. 'Selphie, I'm not the Catbus; get your own car.' Isn't what you always say?" 

"I just don't want chu get any hop-ops. But this is a special occasion." She picked up Selphie and Yuffie and placed them on her shoulders. "Oh. Yuffie's probably going to be barfing all over the place, though." 

Yuffie shrugged. "It's okay. I can tell you guys really want to do this." 

With Yuffie and Selphie clinging to her shoulders, Chu-Chu bounded up the side of Garden, from curved balcony to curved balcony, and reached the roof without breaking a sweat. 

"Don't worry! I only threw up a little bit!" 

The three of them laid on their backs, staring up at the full moon. 

"I bet there's a lot of werewolves out tonight," Yuffie murmured. 

The sun had set, and Selphie was sure that it was later than it _felt_. But, the warm summer air gave them little reason to hurry inside, and it seemed like this night could stretch on forever—as if there were never any limits, as if they could go forever. 

But she looked across the roof and saw Yuffie flipping through her complimentary issue of _Contemporary Barding_ and Chu-Chu sorting her orientation materials for Deling Med, and she knew that even this most perfect of moments had been compromised by the march of time. Selphie resolved not to let herself be left behind; she didn't want to be the last of her friends to turn into a real grown-up. Better to move on from your old life before your old life moved on from you. 

The next day, she put in for the New Media position. 

*** * ***

But Selphie's future and her place in the world suddenly didn't seem so important. Right now, in the present, her main concern was not getting devoured by the zombie horde. Even with a Ribbon to protect herself from being infected, there were still twenty or thirty zombies who wanted to take a huge bite out of her. 

It had become a back-and-forth battle. Selphie, Yuffie, and Chu-Chu would cure one of the patients, then the zombie horde would bite them and reclaim them, then Chu-Chu would cure them again. "Oh my God, they killed Biggs and Wedge! Oh, whew, they're alive again. Oh my God, they killed Biggs agai—oh, no, he's fine." 

Unfortunately, the zombies had the strength of numbers, which meant they could infect new victims faster than the Garden Festival Committee could cure them. "Selphie, we can't keep up with this!" Chu-Chu shouted before blessing the next bottle of water. "I mean, we cure two people, and then the zombies bite them again, and they're back to being zombies. We're outnumbered." 

Selphie dumped two bottles of Sacrosil into Yuffie's hands, grabbed two new bottles of water, and ran them back to Chu-Chu. "Less talk, more blessing!" 

But Chu-Chu's arms and legs were aching, and the zombie horde was only getting bigger. "I vote we get out of here while we still can." 

"Yeah. How?" 

"I could crack a window and we could roll out." 

Even with the snow to cushion her fall, Selphie wasn't amenable the prospect of jumping out a third story window. " _You_ could. Human beings don't curl up into balls unless we're Samus Aran." 

But the zombie horde had spread to the hallway and blocked the elevator and stairs. Were they going to have to make a run for it and try not to get surrounded? 

Selphie did have one other idea, but it was questionable whether she was up to the challenge. She liked to _think_ she could still pilot a helicopter in a pinch, but she hadn't done any real flying in years. "Is there, like, a Flight for Life helicopter around here?" 

"Yeah! Chu can fly it, right?" 

"I think so. But only if you let me yell 'Get to the choppa' on the way." 

The three of them set down their holy water supplies and made a run for it. Fortunately, these were the slow-moving, bad-at-opening-doors kind of zombies, so it was easy for them to stay ahead of their pursuers. 

Selphie had already rounded two corners before she and Chu-Chu realized that Yuffie wasn't with them. They turned around and went back to look for her. 

Yuffie had wandered off into one of the other hospital rooms, knocked over the plastic skeleton in the corner, and was now gnawing on its rubber brain. "Gawd, this is all gamey," she complained, seeing her friends. "Do you guys know where I could find any better brains? I've got this sudden craving." 

Selphie and Chu-Chu exchanged horrified glances. 

"Don't worry! I know what you're thinking, but I swear I'm not pregnant." 

"Uh, yeah, that's not what we were thinking," Chu-Chu said. "Yuffie, it sounds like you're turning inchu a zombie. Are chu sure you're been wearing your Ribb— hey, where the _hell_ is your Ribbon?" 

Yuffie shrugged. "Jim Carrey said that Ribbons—" 

"I don't care what Jim Carrey said!" Chu-Chu stomped her tiny foot. "Who's the doctor here? Me! I am! I didn't bust my ass in medical school for four years so that chu could start taking medical advice from Ace Ventura! _I_ took the science classes; _I_ know how magic works!" 

"Gawd, like you're the only person who has to work, Chu-Chu. I was up for three nights cramming for my Accredited Minstrel Professional® exam; did you know that?" 

Chu-Chu chortled. "Well, there's three days of your life you'll never get back. You spoon—" 

"I TOLD YOU NOT TO SAY THAT!" Yuffie yelled. "Geez, sorry I don't have your perfect life with your perfect career and your perfect relationship with the perfect anthropomorphic dolphin husband. Rub it in, why don't you?" 

Watching from the end of the hall, Selphie was alarmed that what was supposed to be a celebration of Christmas had instead turned into the Airing of Grievances. This was her second worst holiday ever! (When she was eight, her foster parents had held a themed birthday party for her, and the theme had been "dollar store.") 

Maybe it had been a mistake to try to get them all together. She knew that some memories were supposed to stay memories and that trying to relive your youth was often a mistake, like when you went back and listened to "Semi-Charmed Life" as an adult and realized it was about crystal meth. But these were two of her best friends! If _they_ couldn't still find some common ground after all these years, what hope was there for any of them? She couldn't but help think back to her poor, squashed paopu fruit. Had it been a harbinger of separation? Did it mean they wouldn't stay a part of each others' lives forever? 

By now, Yuffie and Chu-Chu were flat-out screaming at each other. Selphie ran between them and pushed them apart. "Whoa, whoa, whoa. Everybody! Love! And peace!" 

Yuffie suddenly jumped at her. "BRAINS," she growled attempting to take a bite out of Selphie's ear. 

Selphie shoved Yuffie aside and did her best to restrain her. "Sacrosil! Chu-Chu, do you have any Sacrosil?" 

"No," Chu-Chu said. She glanced back down the halls. The zombies had filled up most of the operating rooms and were gradually making their way down the hall, so there was no getting back to the bottled water now. "We can't take her with us, or she's just going to keep trying to bite us." 

They pushed Yuffie into a supply closet and started to tie her to a shelf. Yuffie had never taken rope escape lessons very seriously, and as soon as Selphie had the rope around her arms, she was pretty much helpless. 

"Yuffie, I'm real sorry, but this is for your own good so that you don't do anything stupid as a zombie," Selphie said. "I promise you we're going to get you help as soon as we can." 

Yuffie acknowledged the logic with a nod, but she wasn't happy about it. "Gawd, some doctors _you_ guys are," she grumbled. "I thought you were supposed to make people feel better." 

Chu-Chu sighed despairingly. "Chu know, I wasn't even supposed to _be_ here today." 

With Yuffie left behind in the supply closet until they could treat her, Chu-Chu and Selphie made for the roof. Chu-Chu led them to the back stairwell that led up to the roof. "What about McBishie?" Selphie panted. "Shouldn't we try to find him, too?" 

"He's got a gun that's also an axe. I'm sure he'll be fine." 

"It wasn't a gun that was also an axe; it was an axe that was also a gun." 

They climbed several flights of stairs to reach the roof access. When they reached the door at the top of the stairwell, Chu-Chu stopped and thumbed through her hospital keyring. "Hang on, I can't remember if the roof access uses the ruby key or the spade key." 

While Chu-Chu fiddled with her keys, Selphie used the time to make a phone call. It was funny how the prospect of imminent death or destruction made past grievances seem so petty and distant. She fumbled through her phone for a contact she hadn't used in far too long and, without a second thought, hit the call button. 

Zell didn't pick up—ignoring her? busy?—so she left a message. "Hey, it's me. I swear this isn't a drunk dial; it's a zombie dial. I'm kinda trapped in a hospital that's getting taken over by the undead, and I guess I wanted to leave you a message in case I end up getting devoured. 'Cause ... I'd be real sad if I died and just left things as sad and stupid as they are. So, I'm sorry about ... everything. I swear I never meant to just let it all die like this, and, dammit, we should have found _some_ way to be part of each other's lives. Well, hopefully I'll get out of here alive, and we can talk sometime, yeah?" 

"Oh, it's one of the _chess pieces_ ," Chu-Chu said as she finally unlocked the door. 

[](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U4n_8R5lKnw)

Chu-Chu pushed open the door to the snow-covered hospital roof, unleashing a blast of cold winter air. With the wind in their face, they dashed through the snow for the hospital helicopter, Selphie yelling, "Get to the choppa!", and climbed inside. 

Selphie stared at the helicopter controls, pedals and dials everywhere. She _did_ still know to how use all of this, right? A brief wave of panic surged through her, and her hands quivered as she worried whether what was supposed to come naturally to her just _wouldn't_. It was like setting off on a trip and then realizing that the directions you thought you'd memorized hadn't been memorized after all. 

"Now, I haven't done this in a long time, so no promises I can get this thing up." 

"That's what he said." 

But she'd always hoped, _intended_ to get back to flying one day. "When the time is right," she would say, as if the right time would simply march up and announce itself to her. Well, maybe it was time to make her own time. She took a deep breath. "All right. I think I can do this." 

"Um, that doesn't sound great, but I guess we don't have any choice, so: I believe in chu, Selphie." 

"Or maybe we could try to find one of those mecha that just psychically links with you and—" 

The zombies started to lurch out of the stairwell and onto the roof. 

"Okay, fine." Really, it was kind of embarrassing that she even had to worry about this. She hadn't even been old enough to vote when she had been flying the Ragnarok in an assault against the Lunatic Pandora, and now she just spent her time reblogging old Laguna Loire campaign posters. What the heck had happened to her? She was like some kind of washed-up child star, or a high school star quarterback who knew his finest hours had already come and gone and who now could only look back at his days of glory. 

Well, the hell if she was going to spend the rest of her life looking back. She wasn't _that_ old, she still had plenty of living to do, and she was either going to fly this sucker off the hospital roof or die trying. Hashtag yolo. 

Selphie started up the helicopter. As the rotor blades came up to speed, the helicopter lifted off from the roof. But the winter winds didn't cooperate, blasting the helicopter from one side and leaving Selphie fighting to keep the helicopter steady and upright. 

"Selphie! Chu got this! Probably." 

It took her several minutes, but Selphie finally righted the helicopter and got it under her full control. She lifted up further, advanced forward—and then they were away, the hospital receding behind them as they flew into the safety of clear air. 

Selphie pumped both fists in the air. "WHOO-HOO!" 

Chu-Chu immediately reached over and grabbed the throttle. "Don't let go, chu idiot!" 

But now Selphie was confident, now she was in her groove. She took the controls again, but this time as a demonstration of practiced skills rather than a desperate battle. 

Chu-Chu lowered her head in a prayer of either fear or gratitude. Selphie wasn't really sure she wanted the Wondrous Mambo God as her copilot, so she rapped the instrument panel next to her. "Hey! Chu-Chu! Is there a park or something I can land in?" 

With Chu-Chu guiding her, Selphie took the helicopter to Deling Park, several blocks away from the hospital. She found the clearest, flattest bit of park, where the snow was closest to level, and touched down in an uneventful landing. _Nailed it_. 

Chu-Chu let her head rest against the dashboard. "Praise be to Mambo. I can't wait to get home after everything that's happened today." 

"Wait, _home_?" Selphie was aghast. "Aren't we going to get help?" 

"On Churistmas?" Chu-Chu climbed out of the helicopter, only to find that Selphie was still staring her down. "C'mon, don't look at me like that. It's _your_ holiday. I'm sure once they hire some new doctors or the National Guard gets called in, they'll eventually get everyone back to normal." 

"But it's Christmas! We can't just leave a bunch of sick people in the hospital when they should be home with their family! I mean, Yuffie and McBishie are still in there. They need our help!" 

Chu-Chu shrugged. "They obviously didn't want to be home _that_ badly, or they would've gotten their shots," she said, growing surly again. "I can't help someone who doesn't want chu help themselves." 

She started to walk away, and Selphie quickly jumped into her path to stop her. "C'mon. How about we settle this rock, paper, scissors?" she said. "Ready? Jan... ken... pon!" 

Selphie whipped out her sure-to-win rock. 

She gaped at Chu-Chu's flat hand. Paper. 

"I'm _done_ with this mess, Selphie." 

Chu-Chu transformed into her giant mode and stomped off, faster than Selphie's little legs could possibly hope to carry her. 

This was the second time in Selphie's life she had been left abandoned at a hospital. She stood there for half a minute in the snow, winds whipping around her, tears sliding down her cheeks and icing up, before a retort finally came to mind. "What if your kid makes a dumb mistake?" she shouted. Chu-Chu was already some distance away, and Selphie struggled to raise her voice over the wind and muffling snow. 

Selphie tried to run after her, but the knee-high snow reduced her pace to "stumbling" at best. "What are you going to do then? Huh?" she shouted, hoping that Chu-Chu could hear her. "Are you going to ditch your daughter in the snow, too?" 

In her haste, she stumbled in the deep snowbanks and fell face-first into the snow. She lay there pathetically, yelling ineffectually into the wind, "You're going to be a terrible MILF! I mean mother!" 

When she finally conceded that Chu-Chu couldn't hear her and probably wasn't listening anyway, she picked herself up. There was only one thing to do, preposterous as it might seem. She had to go back to the hospital and rescue everyone. Yuffie might have made some dumb choices, but at least _she_ hadn't spat in the face of their friendship. 

Some Christmas this was turning out to be.

*** * ***

By the time Selphie finally trudged all of the way back to the hospital, her legs were aching from dashing through the snow (without a sleigh), she was shivering, and she'd expended her entire stack of Firaga to stay warm. It was well past midnight and not even Christmas now, but time had lost all meaning anyway. This day was just one slow-motion disaster that wouldn't end until she'd rescued Yuffie and McBishie and fixed this whole mess.

But if you took away all the crap surrounding it, she was actually kinda excited about the prospect of fighting to cure a whole bunch of sick zombies. It combined two of her favorite things: peace and violence. 

[](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f_bz2RdV6qk)

She was going to need a whole lot more Sacrosil, so step two was becoming an ordained minister. Fortunately, there was an app for that, and since it was now Boxing Day, the website even gave her a discount. The official paperwork wouldn't arrive in the mail for another couple weeks, but what was a little red tape in the face of divine intervention? 

The hard part would be getting to a supply of water. The first floor of the hospital crawling with zombies, every patient by now having been infected and zombified. 

But she knew zombies had one weakness: Doors. Selphie made a mad dash through the waiting room, past the zombified space marine and Italian plumber, and into the ladies' room. There, she forced one of the stall doors off its hinges. Awkwardly carrying the door in front of her like a riot shield, Selphie waddled back out of the bathroom. And suddenly the zombies were no longer the least bit interested in her. They turned away from her, simply routed themselves around her like she was part of the furniture. Surely there was no way they could get past a _door_ , so what did it matter what kind of delicious brains might be hiding on the other side? 

Pushing the zombies aside with her door, Selphie could safely navigate the hospital. It was clear that blessing one bottle of water at a time was useless in turning the zombie tide, so Selphie went to the courtyard and picked up the hose that she'd previously used to douse the unnamed plumber. 

And then the good Reverend Tilmitt bowed her head and made her best attempt to say a prayer. "Dear Wondrous M—" She tried again. "Dear Lord, I don't know if You like hoses, but I really need to help my friends." 

She turned the hose on full-blast. 

A great stream of holy water sprayed forth, drenching the waiting room, the chairs, the counter, and half the zombies with such force it even startled Selphie. She swung the hose back and forth, making sure she hit every last zombie with the gushes of purifying water. And then everyone turned back to normal. 

"Whoo-hoo!" 

Unfortunately, that was as far as the hose reached, which meant that everyone on the upper floors was out of luck. Selphie unwrapped the packages under the Toys For Tots tree until she found a Super Soaker. _Perfecto_. She filled the water gun up with holy water from the hose and took the elevator up to the second floor. She inched out of the elevator, and blasted the first two zombies she saw with her water gun, and then hurried back to the first floor for more holy water. 

By the time she got back to the second floor with more water, one of the zombies she'd just cured had been bitten and re-infected. Oh, Hyne. This was going to take forever, wasn't it? 

And so back and forth she ran, reloading on the first floor and trying to cure more people on the second before the zombies re-infected the people she'd already cured. Her legs were aching from running back and forth, she'd been awake for twenty-four hours, and she was running on pure adrenaline, but she knew that if she gave up now, the remaining zombies would re-infect everyone, and she'd lose all the progress she made. It was total victory or nothing. Maybe if she could find McBishie, he could load his gun-axe with holy water too... 

It was on the sixth or seventh trip back for more Sacrosil that she heard the front doors of the hospital slide open. Expecting more zombies, Selphie ran to get her hose. 

But it wasn't zombies. It was her friends. 

[](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aUSiM7fnzzU)

One-by-one, they came striding in through the door. Zell, leading the charge, hair no longer sky-high but still brimming with energy. Squall, with the terrible-looking "ironic" beard he'd had for the past couple of years. Irvine, looking as carefree as ever, rifle slung over his shoulder. Quistis, always one of her best friends, coming all the way here even on Christmas Day to bail her out despite the wedding band on her finger. 

"We came as soon as I got your message," Zell said, half apologetic for taking long to get there, half sheepish he'd even come at all. 

"I'm here too," said Nida. "Nida's here." 

She fell to her knees with relief and almost collapsed right there on the sopping wet carpet. For once, there was _good_ news; for once, a surprise had worked out in her favor. And now that they were here, it seemed almost inconceivable that she'd even thought she could do this on her own. 

"Listen," she said, "I have a way to save everyone who's been turned into a zombie, but it's going to be a whole lot easier with more people." 

"Yeah, of course," Quistis said. She wasn't sure why Selphie was carrying a hose or why there appeared to have been a highly localized flood in a hospital waiting room, but anything to help a friend. "Just let us know what you need us to do." 

"Good. Squall, take my hose. It's been sanctified, so don't go picking your nose or anything. Everyone else, as soon as Squall has these water guns filled with Sacrosil, you're going to take them upstairs and squirt it on people. Sacrosil is holy water; it cures zombies. Side effects may include nausea, impaired vision, and speaking in tongues. Consult your bishop before using Sacrosil." 

Squall took over filling up the guns with Sacrosil while Zell, Irvine, and Quistis hauled them up to go join the fight. "Careful!" Selphie called. "If you get bitten, you'll turn into a zombie." 

Irvine shrugged. "Nah, it's cool; they give you a shot for that in SeeD." 

*** * ***

[](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5FsGor-NBak)

When Chu-Chu got back to her apartment, her dolphin husband Franz was still awake, spending the night watching television and remixing Congressional testimony. She was relieved; after a zombie-apocalyptically bad day, the last thing she wanted was to have to wind down the day alone.

Franz switched off the TV. "You were workin' _late_ , sweetcheeks." 

"If chu count 'work' as dealing with a gigantic mass of mindless, drooling minions," Chu-Chu said. "And on top of that, there were zombies." She sat down on her favorite ottoman and sank into the cushion. "I'm so disgchusted; I don't even want chu talk about it." 

Franz wondered what could have upset her so much on what was supposed to be a special day with her friends, but now wasn't the time to pry. Sometimes it was more important just to be the _escape_ from life's worries rather than the _solution_ to them, and he knew Chu-Chu would get everything sorted out one way or another. After all, hadn't they vowed at their wedding to love each in good times and in bad? (We can't print the _rest_ of their wedding vows in a Teen-rated fanfic.) 

Chu-Chu nodded towards Franz's turntables. "I want chu hear what you were working on. As long as it's not about zombies." 

Franz let the needle drop on "California Library Services Act (DJ Blowhole Remix)". 

Chu-Chu giggled. "Mmm, Franzy-poo. That's getting me all hot and bothered. You must be _World of Warcraft_ 'cause I'm going chu spend all night grinding on you." 

"That's my Chu-Chu," he said, giving her a playful nudge. "Seme in the streets; uke in the sheets." 

Soon the disaster at the hospital was the last thing on Chu-Chu's mind. 

While Franz went to floss his blowhole before bed, Chu-Chu said a prayer at the altar in the corner and then slipped under the covers. More than anything, she just wanted to curl up with her laptop, eat some nice yummy spiders, and finish her Dullard x The Guy Who Always Cuts Off Your Limbs yaoi fic. She picked up her tiny netbook computer—the only computer small enough for her—and fired up her browser. 

"Oh, yeah," Chu-Chu said to Franz. "There was a hott nurse. Want chu see if we can Facebook creep him?" 

After several searches for "McBishie" returned only _Did you mean: ** _McRib_**_ , Chu-Chu finally located the LinkedIn profile of one Cerulean Deuteronomy. 

_**Senior Mad Scientist** (2005-present)_  
 _Umbrella Corporation_  
 _Create various sadistic mutations despite no apparent business motivation. Probably give a bunch of speeches about human weakness and superior life forms or whatever, who even really cares. Develop second, third form for boss battles._

"Oh, dear." 

*** * ***

The SeeD bucket brigade took over dousing the remaining zombies, allowing Selphie to rest for a moment. Irvine went outside to snipe any zombies that had escaped the hospital. Nida wandered around, looking for something to do. "Geez, you didn't even tag me as being in this fanfic, did you?" 

Selphie strolled through the front of the hospital, surveying the damage: windows broken, holy water running in rivulets down the hallways, Toys For Tots tree a mess of wrapping paper and unwanted Dismember Me Elmo dolls. It certainly wasn't _pretty_ , but at least everyone seemed to be safe. 

But now that the crisis had been wrapped up, she knew she'd have to get around to saying something to Zell. After pouring her guts out in a zombie-dialed voicemail, she couldn't shrug it off and act like nothing happened. She thought about apologizing for bringing them all out here on _Christmas_ of all days, or trying to crack some lame joke about zombies eating her brain, but she was too exhausted by the day's events to be anything but sincere. 

"Thanks," she said. "I really don't know if I'd have been able to do that on my own." 

Zell looked rather embarrassed at being himself, as he often did. "C'mon. You think you can leave me a voicemail saying you might get devoured and not have me do something? And, you know, I'm totally with you on not meaning to leave things the way we did. I keep meaning to get in touch someday, but SeeD has me all over the world; feels like I'm hardly ever in Balamb to say hi." 

Selphie let out a sigh. It had been a while since they'd been dating, which meant that it was silly for her to care about what was going on in his life. But it had also been a while since they'd broken up, so any hard feelings had been painted over by a hundred million other events in her life. "Yeah. How's that going?" 

Zell shrugged. "Pretty good. I mean, I'm seeing the world, that's for sure." He gave her a playful punch on the shoulder. "But, how's life up in the office treating you? Made 'booyaka' go viral yet?" 

"Heh. I wish." 

Zell looked down at his phone for a moment. "Well, I can do my part." He held the phone up, showing where he'd just tweeted "BOOYAKA!" "Merry Christmas, Selphie. Sorry I didn't wrap it." 

She laughed, then let out a sigh. It felt good to know that people still cared about some of her quirks, but also a little sad, like she'd been cultivating the wrong things by spending all day in a cubicle with a list of management-approved Core Values. 

Zell looked he was about to say something else, but instead just leaned back against the wall. 

"I—" she started and then stopped. 

"Are you guys are doing this crap again?" Squall said as he passed through with a fresh bucket of holy water. "I was hoping the two of you would just shack up already." 

Well, this made things even weirder. Now if they did anything, it would look like they were taking relationship advice from _Squall_ of all people. But since he'd mentioned it, it was _also_ pretty hard to deny there were definitely some lingering embers of attraction that had never been squelched. Some part of what had brought them together in the first place still sought to realize those dreams. It was just too bad that neither of them had the take-charge personality to actually d— 

Zell pulled her in by her hips and kissed her. 

[](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OjQ9AeWC-pE)

After a moment of complete astonishment, she had her arms around him and was kissing him back. Hot damn. For once, life had pleasantly surprised her. 

Zell pulled back long enough to say, "I'm glad you're not a zombie," before he kissed her again, _really_ kissed her, strong arms reeling her in and tightening around her back. Their lips met more forcefully, his tongue pressed into her mouth, simple affection giving way to an implacable _need_ that now neither of them could pretend not to feel. 

Squall stepped around the corner to see why the conversation had stopped. Selphie raised one hand to give him the finger while keeping the other wrapped around Zell. 

Zell's hands found her ass and lifted her clear off the ground, making Selphie's heart race with the thrill of doing something completely over the top. They stumbled backwards into the courtyard and nearly tripped over one of the three wise men, which only seemed to further Selphie's ardor. Hell _yes_ they were going to be reckless and tell the rest of the world to get out of their way. She was due for that, wasn't she? She was happy to be swept up in the moment, relieved not to be worrying or thinking about the future once and just _being_ , her lips drawing slowly across Zell's top lip, his arms around her, her hand creeping under his shirt before she even realized where it was going. 

They had a brief moment of privacy—Squall having made himself invisible again—before Rosaria Rendezvous herself stormed into the lobby. Selphie was stunned in multiple ways: one, that Chu-Chu had just returned; two, that she didn't made any lewd remark about finding Selphie and Zell in each other's arms. 

"Start setting up a perimeter!" Chu-Chu shouted as she breezed past the assembled SeeDs. "If McBishie's still here, we can't let him out of the building." 

Selphie let go of Zell and ran after her friend. "You're not even going to ask why everyone's here? You're just going to start handing out directions?" She was glad Chu-Chu had come back—she'd kinda expected Chu-Chu would—but she wasn't ready yet to put their disagreements behind them. "I did your job _for_ you, you know!" 

Chu-Chu didn't slow down a bit. "McBishie released the T-Virus," she declared. "It was him." She marched into the elevator. 

Selphie jumped in the elevator beside Chu-Chu. She wasn't letting this go that easily. "You're welcome, by the way!" 

Chu-Chu was still fuming in a way that Selphie hadn't ever really seen from her. "What the hell is his game? What kind of sicko wants to poison people at a hospital?" 

The elevator doors opened on the third floor. Chu-Chu rolled out, and Selphie jogged after her. "Yeah, well, _you_ walked off the job and left a bunch of sick people here," she argued back. "As an ordained minister, I'm appalled by the way you've treated my flock." 

Chu-Chu came to a stop as her conscience finally caught up with her anger. "All right, I admit it. Chu _are_ right. I have to help sick people. Even if they make bad decisions. Even if I'm frustrated with them. That's my job; that's what I signed up for when I became a doctor. Also, when the hell did chu become an ordained minister?" 

"Just now, so I could make more Sacrosil. It was a Christmas miracle." 

At Selphie's urging, they stopped off at the supply closet where the zombified Yuffie was still tied to a shelf. 

Chu-Chu readied a bucket of Sacrosil to throw on Yuffie and then, with a somewhat regretful sigh, gently splashed just a handful in Yuffie's face instead. Yuffie sat bolt upright, spluttering. "I'm awake, Instructor Hawwa! I'm awake!" She jumped up, tried to run, was yanked backward by the rope attached to her, and fell flat on her face. 

When they'd revived her a second time, Chu-Chu explained, "You got bitten by a zombie, Yuffie. Chu started trying chu eat Selphie's brain, and we had chu tie you up." 

In the awkward silence they followed, Selphie glared at them and coughed. 

Chu-Chu got the message. "Yuffie, I'm sorry I called chu stupid and walked off the job when I should have been trying chu help chu. I really do care about chu." 

"Gawd, it's okay. I know I wasn't really listening to what you were saying about the Ribbons. You were trying to give it to me hard and straight, and I just blew you off." She leaned forward expectantly. 

The scowl had gradually disappeared from Chu-Chu's face to be replaced with a euphoric grin. "THAT'S WHAT SHE SAID!" 

And then they were friends again. 

Yuffie's senses were starting to return to her. "Whoa! Hey, Selphie, Chu-Chu! While I was sitting here turning into a zombie, I came across a whole bunch of bottles of Sacrosil in the trash, like someone threw them out on purpose. I think it might have been that McBoshy guy." After a moment's thought, she added, "The moon's out; maybe he turned into a werewolf." 

"Yeah, we know," Chu-Chu said. "Not the werewolves part." 

"Great! Let's go kick his butt!" Yuffie jumped up again and this time managed to pull the entire shelf of copier paper down with her. "Gawd!" 

While Selphie untied Yuffie before she destroyed any more of the hospital, Chu-Chu wrung her paws. "Ugh. I hope McBishie hasn't gotten away already. If he makes it to Midgar, we'll never find him; there's just genetically engineered bishounen villains all over the place there." 

Yuffie climbed to her feet and dusted herself off. "Well, what was he doing when he was here? Might tell us where he'd want to hide. Now, when _I'm_ choosing a hiding place, I remember FROST." She ticked each letter off on her hands. "Fortified, Remote, Obscure, Secure, Turrets. That's from my workshop; I—" 

Selphie clapped her hands over her ears. "Yuffie, please. I'm trying to remember what happened twelve hours ago, like you suggested." 

"Well, just scroll up the page, dummy." 

> _McBishie emerged from one of the operating rooms, holding up an empty bottle. "Fine, but we're out of holy water."_

"He probably emptied it himself, but that doesn't tell us anything. Keep going." 

> _McBishie was gazing out the window with a haunted look that said: I have a tragic, angst-ridden backstory that probably involves genetic engineering and/or my girlfriend dying._

"No, that's not it. Ctrl+F 'McBishie'." 

> _McBishie stopped to finish the last of his coffee before tossing the Donut Plains cup in the trash._

_That_ could be it. Selphie clapped her hands to her forehead. "Hold on, wasn't the first victim the guy who served us coffee in the morning? And McBishie must have stopped at that same coffee shop. What if he put the virus in the coffee there? I mean, we were treating zombies before McBishie even _got_ to the hospital. The infection must have started somewhere else." 

As soon as she said it, they were almost certain that the pieces had come together. Now they just had to catch McBishie before he skipped town. 

They hurried back down to the first floor, where Franz was finally lumbering in. "Hey, Squall, how about I hold your hose for a bit?" He winked. 

Without breaking stride, Selphie shouted out directions to the assembled SeeDs, "We think we know where McBishie is! You guys stay here; nobody gets in or out of this hospital until we have him in custody!" And then they were out the door, united in their mission. The Garden Festival Committee was ready to kick McBishie's tight, toned butt. 

Quistis frowned. "Who is 'McBishie'?" 

Zell shrugged. "I dunno, but he better watch out. I haven't seen Selphie this angry since they changed the theme music to _Hockey Night in Trabia_." 

"It was a national tragedy!" Selphie shouted from outside. 

Chu-Chu ducked down and started her big big churansformation. Once again, Selphie and Yuffie were clinging to her shoulders as she stomped back down the lamplit streets towards the Donut Plains coffee shop where they'd stopped yesterday. 

[](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iplr6h4Uy_Q)

Despite the facts that the hospital was a wreck and she was up past midnight tracking down a bishounen supervillain, Selphie felt more excited than she had all Christmas. They'd solved this mystery—how many people could have done that?—and McBishie was about to discover they were the wrong ladies to mess with. It had taken them a long time, but they were finally starting to click again, starting to fall back into their old groove. They weren't just Selphie and Yuffie and Chu-Chu, they were _the Garden Festival Committee_ —back in action, paopu fruit or not. And when they were at their best, who could possibly stop them? 

Yuffie, wanting to be useful, started proposing battle strategies. "OK, I've got three ideas. Number one, Selphie attacks with her nunchaku, Chu-Chu casts her healing magic, and I strum my harp right in his face." 

"Just try not chu get in the way, Yuffie." 

"He better not lay a hand on me," Selphie huffed. "I'm a woman of the cloth." 

"All right, second idea: Selphie casts Wall, I hide under a table, and then Chu-Chu goes into giant mode and just crushes everyone." 

"I like that one," Selphie said. 

"YUFFIE! Chu can't just destroy the whole place; there might be innocent people inside. Like Selphie said, I'm a doctor; I've got chu _help_ people. What's your third idea?" 

"Well, number three was gonna be to just dynamite the coffee shop, but I can already tell that's going to be a no-go." 

As it turned out, the coffee shop had long since closed for the night. A sole light from inside aroused suspicion: Was McBishie hiding there and up to something? 

After Chu-Chu shrank back down to regular size and deposited them on the doorstep, the three women all clasped a hand together. "Y,S,C in position. It's showtime, girls." 

Selphie kicked the door down. McBishie stood behind the counter. He'd hooked up some gauges and vials of green goop to the large pots of coffee, and he was periodically checking on them and saying things like "The black wind howls" and "I can hear the cry of the Planet." 

"Why?" Chu-Chu howled. "Why did chu want to turn everyone into zombies? I believed in chu! I _trusted_ chu with my life—and my Snapchat account!" 

"Blah blah genetic engineering blah blah," said McBishie. "Blah blah angst blah blah cleanse the world, you are a puppet blah blah blah." Then he pivoted towards them, casting his cloak aside. "But enough talk! Have at you!" 

Selphie lashed out with her nunchaku. McBishie deflected the strike with his gun-axe and fired off a few shotgun shells that flew over Chu-Chu's head. 

"C'mon," McBishie taunted them. "What's it to you whether these -Lambs- turn into zombies? If they were so worried about it, they should have gotten the shot for it." 

Chu-Chu clenched her fists and crouched into a combat position. "Because I'm a doctor! I _have_ chu heal people, no matter what!" she said with a new clarity of purpose. 

"Yeah!" Selphie said as she cast a Haste spell on her team. "And, being an ordained minister, I can't let you harm my congregation. I mean, I guess they're my congregation?" 

"And, as an Accredited Minstrel Professional®, I—" 

"No one cares," said Selphie, Chu-Chu, and McBishie. 

McBishie raised his gun-axe over his head and unleashed his Grand Cross spell, a barrage of whirling lights that left Selphie confused, Yuffie a frog, and Chu-Chu silenced. 

But, they'd learned a few things over the course of the day. Chu-Chu punched Selphie, Selphie gave Yuffie a centikiss, and Yuffie used an echo screen on Chu-Chu, and they were back to normal. "You forgot who you're dealing with," Selphie said. "We're the Garden Festival Committee!" 

She clobbered McBishie over the head with her festive nunchaku, and he fell to the floor. 

Chu-Chu kept her fists up. "Watch out," she panted. "His resume said he had a final form." 

Indeed, McBishie soon rose back to his knees, growling and sputtering with anger. He mumbled some quotes from _LOVELESS_ and sprouted what Selphie would later describe as "some type of angel wing or mutant growth or some other crap." 

Selphie started rolling and re-rolling her mental slot machine, trying to get a Wall spell to protect them. But before Selphie landed anything good, McBishie unleashed his ultimate attack, which probably involved a bunch of energy beams and/or mystic symbols. The three women were hurled across the room and slammed against the wall; Chu-Chu was knocked out cold. Selphie, writhing on the ground in pain, fumbled for a Phoenix Down to revive her. Knocked flat on her chest, Yuffie reached out, trying to grab hold of her military-grade harp. 

McBishie stepped forward. "Is that your backup plan? A harp?" He sneered. "You spoony bard." 

With a blood-curdling scream that stunned both Selphie and Chu-Chu, Yuffie hurled herself at McBishie and tackled him to the floor. "QUIT MAKIN' FUN OF ME!" She pummeled him, punch after punch, in the face. He finally managed to get up, but Yuffie just shoved him through the plate glass window. He landed in the snowbank behind the store, where the pack of wild Malboros that had been menacing Deling City immediately set upon him and turned him into a mute, confused, poisoned statue. 

Yuffie turned to face Selphie and Chu-Chu. "I'm tired of taking all this crap from you guys!" she said. "Fine, so I don't have a fancy title; I'm not Dr. Chu-Chu, M.D., or Selphie Tilmitt, A-rank SeeD—" 

" _Reverend_ Selphie Tilmitt, A-rank SeeD," corrected Selphie. 

"—but you know what? I _like_ bein' a bard! I get to play my harp all day, and I don't have to worry about getting killed in action 'cause I'm usually hiding under a rock. _I'm_ happy with my job, so why should I give a crap what you guys think?" Having said her piece, Yuffie then went to hide under a table. 

Selphie couldn't wipe the grin off her face. They were a team again. She'd gotten them all back together, they'd saved the hospital together, and now they'd whupped McBishie's ass. Everybody! Love! And peace! 

Chu-Chu didn't seem to be taking things quite as well. "I don't understand. How can someone with such long, gorgeous hair be so evil?" She shook her head sadly. "Bishies ain't shit but hos and tricks, Selphie." 

Selphie placed a comforting hand on her friend's shoulder. "Well, you've got a husband now, and a kid on the way. Maybe it's time you stopped crushing on random bishounen you don't even know." 

Chu-Chu stared out the window into the dark winter sky, towards the star that represented her Wondrous Mambo God. She thought about her Franzy-poo, about the daughter that would soon be brightening their home, and about her past, present, and future, before she finally reached a decision. 

"Don't be ridichulous." 

*** * ***

[](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kI2lTwY0Jx8)

_Six days later..._

Selphie had rung in the past several years drunk on cheap wine and singing along to "The Ice of Boston." "Here's to another goddamn new year," she'd say, half mocking the idea that a new number on a calendar could bring about a new start in life, half wishing for exactly that. 

But this time, she thought, the new year really _was_ going to be new. She'd gotten back into flying airships, spent a relaxing few days upgrading her model train, and had a new start with Zell—she wasn't going to call it a _relationship_ yet, but he was back in her life and she might have already listed him as an emergency contact. (Relationship Status: "Answer hazy, try again.") And she'd even found religion, although she'd have to check again _which_ religion she'd found. It all called for a real celebration. 

And so Selphie had gone above and beyond even her own lofty party-planning standards. She'd even brought in Chu-Chu, M.D., to help organize one last Garden Festival Committee bash. (It turned out that saving the hospital from both a zombie infestation and millions in malpractice suits was a good way to convince Porom to let her take the week off after all.) The Balamb Garden ballroom was all decked out with streamers, balloons, and, most importantly, an open bar, and DJ Blowhole was spinning all night long. Hanging over the doorway were sequential pictures of three animals: hippo, gnu, deer. "Get it?" Selphie said. 

Quistis forced a smile and cocked her head towards one of the speakers. "What the hell are we listening to? Is this a Senate hearing?" 

"I could probably get Yuffie to play you 'T.R.O.Y.' on her harp if you'd prefer." 

Quistis glanced around to see if the time was right for a private conversation and then lowered her voice. "So, I should probably tell you. Xu and I are expecting." 

"Wow! Congrats!" Selphie expected to feel the same twinge of sadness she had whenever one of her friends had a big life change. But, for once, she realized that she had enough excitement in her own story that she no longer had to fear someone else jacking her plotlines. Then she did a double-take. "Wait, _both_ of you? At the same time?" 

Quistis spit out her champagne. "Oh, _hell_ no. You're never taking _my_ booze away for nine months." 

Selphie laughed. "Well, happy new year, then." She clinked her champagne glass against Quistis's, then had a thought. "Wait, can _I_ still drink? I need to check again which church I joined." 

Yuffie entered with the look of one who had achieved utter triumph. "Chu-Chu, you're going to be so proud of me. I just made an appointment to get my T-Virus vaccine." 

"Well, that doesn't make any sense." 

Yuffie stared at her. 

"Now that chu _had_ the T-Virus, chu're already immune to it. Chu don't need a vaccine _now_." 

"GAWD!" Yuffie stomped her foot. "I try to do something good, and you keep comin' in with science 'n crap." 

Chu-Chu clapped a paw on her friend's back. "Yuffie, as long as chu take medical advice from wizards instead of celebrities, chu can do whatever you want. But trust me on the echo screens." 

As the clock ticked down the final minutes of what had been a successful year after all, they all waited for the bell to drop in Leene Square. Selphie had to squint at the TV because she could only see out one side of her Year 20XX novelty eyeglasses. 

Chu-Chu elbowed Yuffie. "Chu know, you're supposed chu kiss someone at midnight." 

"Grossness." 

But rather than kiss anyone, Selphie grabbed the people whom she most wanted to show were still on her side. She pulled Yuffie and Chu-Chu in close. With one hand restraining Yuffie from crawling away, Selphie used her other hand to hold her phone up and take a group—wait for it—selfie. 

"3 ... 2 ... 1 ... HAPPY NEW YEAR!" 

The photo was in part a particular moment caught and preserved in amber. But it also indicated something more permanent; it was proof that, whatever their disagreements or different directions, these were still her best friends, and there were some bonds that even that wily devil Father Time had no power over. She could now be secure in the knowledge that, even after the holidays were over, even after they had gone back to their separate lives, they still were—and would always be—the Garden Festival Committee. 

It wasn't until Chu-Chu was already on the way back to Deling City that Selphie checked the photos and saw the ghost hovering in front of Yuffie's face. " _Dammit_!"

[](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WFUAG_1775U)

**Author's Note:**

> **PINK'S ANATOMY: AD ASTRA PER ASPIRIN**
> 
> **Starring:**  
>  Rev. Selphie Tilmitt  
> Dr. Chu-Chu, M.D.  
> Yuffie Kisaragi, A.M.P.
> 
>  **Franz the Dolphin appears courtesy:** Andrea Hartmann
> 
>  **Special Thanks:**  
>  Kitarin Astala  
>  The Final Fantasy Wiki  
> Andrea Hartmann  
> Benjamin Miles  
> Andrew Vestal  
> Charles Vestal  
> Mike Wasson  
> Wikipedia
> 
> This story is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are fictitious or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. No AIBOs were harmed in the making of this fanfic.
> 
> Based on the games by Square Enix, Capcom, and Nintendo. Used without permission
> 
> Franz the Dolphin will next appear in:  
>  **YUNA & LEBLANC GO TO WHITE CASTLE**


End file.
